Heavy Heart
A couple days ago I received an invitation to the Ordination of a very good friend of mine to the order of Catholic Deacon!
For Bill this is one of the greatest times and days of his life. It will rank up there with his marriage and the birth of his children. A new and exciting chapter is opening up in his and his family's life. It will be the culmination of over four years of intensive study and formation and a life time of preparation.
Here is the rub, why am I so sad, almost broken hearted?
Because I feel I spent the first 40 years of my life being called to be a Deacon for the Lord, in service to His Church. I spent two years going through a intense selection process just to be allowed into a 4 year formation program. I started the program with my heart full of confidence, commitment and love of the Lord and all his people.
I struggled the first year of formation mostly because my sister became gravely sick, I became her Guardian and Conservator and her teenage came came to live with us. A son that was heavily involved in drugs and gangs. A son that was kicked out of his school for threatening another teenager with a shotgun. A son that time after time brought drugs and gang bangers into our home. That is until we finally could take no more and when he snuck out of the house one night we literally barricaded the doors and windows to our home and then had all the locks changed.
Through all that my employer had me commuting between Phoenix Arizona and my home in Denver Colorado. But still I kept up my studies, did not miss classes and worked at my spiritual life. I went through every evaluation that the Diaconate Formation Board had and I scored top scores for every one.
Then after the first year, just before a retreat all the candidates were going to go on, I received a letter telling me not to go on the retreat and that I would not be asked back to continue the following year. No explanation, no thank you for attempting to give my life to the Church; just a don't show up now or in the future basically.
My heart and my faith have been ravaged by that for years. Now men that had become like brothers to me in a short period of time are about to be Ordained.
Since being told to leave formation I had my strokes, and lost the career I trained for for 9 years. Everything has become so hard. Tasks that used to take me minutes now take me hours if I can do them at all. At one time I looked forward to attempting formation again but I can barely learn at the pace of an elementary school student. There is no way I will ever be able to keep up with graduate level work.
Maybe my weakened and damaged faith is just committing the sins of jealousy, envy and pride. I was preparing to serve my God and His Church for the rest of my life. Right now I'm going to do therapy which includes tasks I haven't done since Elementary School. But yet I can't master them!
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